The Tiger Catcher Read online

  “What shit?”

  “Oh, you know. I’m not serious enough about life, love, work, et cetera. She calls it my Peter Pan syndrome. Says it’s time to grow up.”

  “Ashton.” Julian shook his head. “Dude, trust me on this, if you’re going to therapy before you get married, the next move is to break the fuck up, not get hitched.”

  “Imma tell Riley you said that. She gon’ be mad.”

  It was time for Ashton to catch a cab to Heathrow. Both men were reluctant to part ways.

  “Do I seem all right to you, Ash?” Julian asked.

  “No.”

  “I mean, do I seem better than before?”

  “No.”

  “Like I’m sane, but depressed?”

  “No.”

  “What, do I seem like all the wheels are about to come off?”

  “No.” Ashton got up. “Wheels came off long ago, brother. They came off that fucking night at the Cherry Lane in New York. I will never forgive Nicole Kidman’s driver. I haven’t seen the real Julian since.”

  Julian got up, too. “How do you know this isn’t the real Julian?”

  “That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me,” Ashton said. “See, I’m still hoping for a revival.” They bumped fists, shoulders. Julian was going to hug him but stopped himself.

  “Dude, chill,” Ashton said with a friendly slap. “I’ll see you in a month.”

  The future. “I hope so,” Julian said as they left the Gallery. “Without you, I can’t do anything right.”

  31

  Time Over Matter

  THIRTY MINUTES AFTER SAYING GOODBYE TO ASHTON, JULIAN was back at Devi’s counter. He extended his hand for the dusty water even before it was offered.

  “You’re back.”

  “Like I’ve got so many more attractive options,” Julian said. The cook was quiet. “Is it wrong for me to say I don’t believe you?”

  “Do you think I’m lying?”

  “I didn’t say you were lying, Devi,” Julian said. “I said I didn’t believe you. There’s a difference.”

  “You won’t get far with disbelief.”

  Devi had prepared a plate of cold chicken and white rice for him. Dutifully Julian ate it. When he was done, he sighed. “I’m in no shape to argue this,” he said. “But I’m not ready to take your word for it either. Mostly I’m a hundred times not ready to carry it out. I’m not the guy to go into the fray for you.”

  “Not for me,” Devi said. “For you. Decide if you’re going to stand up or wait for another chime of the hour. Remember, like all of us, you wake up to a new day. Decide if it’s actually going to be a new day, or exactly like the days you’ve been having. It’s in your hands, Julian. And the work of one’s hands is the beginning of virtue,” the cook added. “You think you’re having a bad day? Well, why not say instead that today is going to be one of your best days yet?”

  Julian took a breath. He had a million things to ask, but memory for barely a dozen answers. “The river only flows one way, no?” he said. “Forward. So I would be going into the future. But you said I’d be going into the past? How can it be both at once?”

  “I told you, because time is all things at once,” Devi replied. “Also, you’re not the flowing river. You’re not even the rocking boat. You’re the man in the boat. You don’t know how to row, and the boat has no oars. That’s you.”

  “I’ll ask again. Am I going into the future? Technically, isn’t it in my hypothetical future and to my hypothetical future that I’d be traveling to?”

  Devi assented. “You can only go into her past because there is no future in which she exists. But since you haven’t acted yet, it is your future self and your future actions you’re contemplating. It’s all just possibility as you sit on my stool.”

  A voice stopped Julian from his knee-jerk cynicism, the same voice that reminded him that Josephine came to him as he slept, walked to him in a new dress, in a new place, blooming with life. It was only because she was so vividly real when she appeared to him that he listened to the Hmong cook now. At least on the outside, he didn’t want to be like Weaver, the hectoring skeptical disbeliever of miracles.

  “The universe doesn’t give you many second chances,” Devi said. “But it’s giving you this one.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe because you were asking so loudly that even my deaf mother heard you.”

  “I knew it! I knew she was your mother.”

  “Well,” Devi said, “you are Mr. Know-it-All.”

  When Julian attempted no reply, the shaman persisted. “I feel the possibility,” Devi said. “I feel it in Josephine’s things, and I feel it in you. I feel it in the new moon and in the rain that’s been falling, and in the cold wind. The earth is swirling into a new order.”

  Draping his elbows on the counter, Julian listened to Devi’s low voice, like on a distant radio. “I can’t do it,” he said quietly. “Honest. I can’t. I can’t go into a cave. The truth is, I’m afraid of confined spaces.”

  “It’s not forever,” Devi said.

  “Forever or five minutes, it doesn’t matter.” Julian chewed his fingers. “What else happens there?”

  To make Julian feel worse, Devi told him about some other things he could expect. “After falling down the well,” the cook said, “you’ll meander. You’ll feel lost. Try not to despair. There is an end. When you find the moongate, you’ll know the river is close. From your gloomy demeanor I gather you’ve been inside caves before?”

  “Sort of. It might’ve been a talus cave,” Julian said. “Scary as balls.”

  “Well, balls are scary,” Devi said. “But a talus is not a real cave. It’s just rocks piled up.”

  “Yes, like after an earthquake or some other seismic event that shifts the earth under your feet,” Julian said. “I may have disturbed them, I don’t know. They collapsed on me. It took me a long time to dig myself out. I lost my way.”

  For many minutes, Devi was silent, studying Julian, appraising him, measuring him against some unfathomable internal thing.

  “This will be something else,” Devi finally said.

  “What’s a moongate?”

  “Oh, Julian.”

  “Oh, Julian what? Is it a gate that looks like a moon?”

  “Yes. It’s a gate that looks like a moon. A talisman. It allows you to live inside the mystery.”

  “Is it manmade?”

  “How can it be manmade? You’re in a cave!”

  “Don’t get impatient with me, shaman. Just explain it.”

  Devi’s expression was severe. “To get to the moongate won’t be easy,” he said. “You may have to jump. You may even have to leap.”

  “I’m not a leaper.”

  “I reckon you’ll have to become a good many things you’re not,” said Devi, refilling Julian’s goblet. “Once inside, there’s no turning back. You can’t change your mind. The portal is not a revolving door. It only opens one way. The only way out is through it. The only way out is forward.”

  Julian was pensive. “You said L.A. was her seventh and last time?”

  “Yes.”

  “So to which of her seven lives would this river of yours take me? Is it random? Or do I get to choose? I hope it’s back to L.A. That way, I can kill Fario Rima.”

  Devi looked at Julian like he was ashamed of him. He picked up a cleaver and took out two heads of cabbage from the lower cabinet. “Just once, can you think before you speak?” Devi said.

  “Why? If I have to travel anywhere, why can’t it be to L.A.?”

  “Oh, good God, Julian!” Devi took a few deep breaths. “If you want to go to L.A., American Airlines flies there twice daily from Heathrow.”

  Julian tutted. “You think you’re so smart.”

  “Only by comparison.” Devi relented slightly. “I’m not certain, but you might make your way to her beginning, when her soul was a fledgling.”

  “How will I know if I get to the right place?”
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  “Because she’ll be there.”

  “Will she be young or old?”

  “Her beret and necklace will take you where you need to be,” Devi said by way of answer.

  “But at what point in her life will they insert me? When she is two? When she’s fifty-two?”

  “Her relics will guide you,” Devi repeated.

  How could the faith healer dangle such tattered rope in front of a drowning man? Julian’s frightened face must have betrayed his turmoil. Devi put down the cleaver, gazing at Julian almost kindly.

  “Are you a mirage?” Julian asked weakly. “Is this nothing but my grief playing tricks on me?”

  “Would that I were a mirage.” Devi displayed his hand with the fingers missing. “I’ve had real pain to make me real.”

  “I don’t think I’m very good at grieving,” Julian said. He had grieved for only one other thing before Josephine.

  “No one is good at it.” Devi did not look up.

  “First grief is like first love,” Julian said. “All consuming. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to let it go.” That was bullshit. It was hard to let it go because Julian began most days with his body lowered up to the neck in a tub of wet Klonopin cement that hardened as the day wore on.

  “Have you ever heard the saying that nothing can be accomplished without fanaticism?” Devi asked. “The flip side of that is that nothing can be enjoyed without serenity. Unfortunately, you don’t have enough of either. You need fortitude. You need perseverance. You need silence and patience. Do you know how to fence? Do you know how to joust? I’m starting to worry.”

  “Now you’re starting to worry?”

  “Perhaps waiting another year is not the worst idea,” said Devi.

  Julian let that hang in the air as he thought of other impossible things. If he was never coming back, what about his family, his mother? “My God, what about Ashton?” he said, his voice cracking, as if just realizing what going and not coming back would mean.

  “If you don’t want to be spooked by the answers,” Devi said, “stop asking scary questions.”

  “But Devi, next month Ashton is moving to London—for me!”

  “So don’t go.”

  “Be serious.”

  “You don’t think I’m being serious?” Devi said. “What do you want, Julian? Answer me already, answer yourself.”

  A chill went through Julian’s body. What do you want? That’s what Josephine had said to him on the darkened stage at the Cherry Lane.

  “Look at that,” Devi said with a smirk. “You’ve managed to answer your most pressing question. Knowledge is so liberating, isn’t it? When the alternative was before you, you reacted with dread. I watched you. You started to shake. You went white. That’s how you know what you want. You don’t want to wait another minute. You desperately want what I’m offering you to be true.”

  At last, one true thing.

  For many minutes, Julian studied Devi with doubt, with fear. Then he wrote down Ashton’s phone number. “If by some chance you’re telling the truth and I do vanish, will you call him and tell him what happened to me?”

  “And he’ll believe me?”

  “Probably not. Since I don’t believe you, he might not either.” Time ticked on. “Will I be alone in the cave?”

  “What’s more frightening?” Devi said. “To be alone? Or to know that there are others there with you, desperate people desperately longing?” He picked up the cleaver. The only sounds in Quatrang were the ticking clocks and the razor-sharp blade slicing through the cabbage. One head. Then another. There was a hill of cabbage on the wooden board before either of them spoke again. Devi’s little place was warm, the oven in the back was on, the yellow light was pleasant, the thwack of the cleaver, the soft thumpy ticking of a dozen quartz clocks, the colored beads of the curtain, refracted light, smell of garlic and vinegar, the shimmering shade. It was hypnosis. Julian gradually stopped shivering, became heavy lidded. His shoulders slumped. His naked anxiety weakened. Drained of energy, he struggled to keep his eyes open.

  “What is in this drink you keep giving me?” he muttered. “It’s like I’m being drugged.”

  “You’re being strengthened.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Tiger,” Devi replied. “Would you like to lie down for a few minutes?”

  “Please,” Julian said, slurring his words. “What do you mean, tiger?”

  “I don’t know how I can be more clear,” Devi said, helping Julian off the stool.

  Julian let himself be led to the back. Behind the small room with the acupuncture table, the stainless steel refrigerator, the cast-iron stove, and the gleaming metal counters, there was a narrow door, and behind it a space big enough for a hard cot. Is this where Devi slept? But why? It was like living at Mrs. Pallaver’s, like an ascetic. Julian knew why he lived like that, but why would Devi live like that? Julian barely took off his jacket before his head lowered, his body fell, and he was unconscious.

  And when he slept, he dreamed of Josephine.

  32

  A Boy Called Wart

  WHEN JULIAN WOKE UP, HE STAGGERED OUT FRONT. IT FELT late, as if he’d been asleep for hours.

  “Good morning,” Devi said. “Are you hungry?”

  The whirring clocks said it was nine. Outside was dark.

  “After you eat, you should go home.” Devi put cold chicken and boiled rice in front of him. “You might want to change clothes. You’re not really dressed for cave travel.” The goblet of murky water appeared.

  Julian stared at it. “What’s in this?”

  “Minerals. Calcium.”

  “You said tiger before I fell asleep. Did I imagine that?”

  Devi shook his head. “Is it delicious? Yes. Is it good for you? Yes. Does it have medicinal properties, healing properties, mystical properties? Yes, yes, yes.”

  “Come on, what is it really? Coconut water?”

  “Tiger water. It’s an ancient Hmong custom. Tiger bones are ground up and made into a beverage. When you drink it, you’re taking on the tiger’s endurance, his patience, which you desperately need, and his perseverance. You’re taking on his stealth and his strength.”

  Julian pushed the goblet away. “Please be joking. You’re like Ashton. I can’t tell with either of you.”

  “Do I look as if I’m joking?”

  “Your face always looks like that. Also, I don’t know you. You could be.”

  Devi poured himself some sake into a tumbler and perched on a stool across the counter from Julian. “I’d offer you sake,” he said, “but you’re at half-strength as it is. The Klonopin has really done a number on you.”

  Julian ate slowly, drank the potion even slower.

  “We are not just shamans in my family,” Devi said. “I come from twenty generations of tiger catchers. Trust me, you need to have a lot of faith in yourself to succeed in that line of work.”

  “You catch tigers?”

  “I used to.”

  “Um, is there much call for that in the middle of Hoxton?”

  “Some,” Devi said. “Probably as much as there is for caving.”

  While Julian ate, Devi talked to him about the art of catching tigers.

  “You must be quiet and motionless. A tiger is a fearsome, awe-inspiring, lethal force of nature. To catch him will require everything you have. You must become fearsome and awe-inspiring yourself.”

  “And I seem fearsome to you?”

  “You must mirror the tiger in action and character as best you can. Never forget this about the tiger: he is smarter than you. He is faster than you, he’s stronger than you, he’s much more dangerous than you. Yes, you can bring a gun to balance out your strengths, and you can kill him, but if you kill him, you haven’t caught him. And what is our name? Is it tiger catcher or tiger killer?”

  “Since I’m drinking ground up tiger bones,” Julian said, “I’m guessing killer.”

  “The bones of one tiger last one Hmong tri
be a thousand years,” Devi said. “From the tiger, I’ve learned to sit quietly and observe the world. I watch him for a long time, and that’s how I know when to catch him. I know when his guard is down, because mine is never down. I catch him when he’s just had a big meal and gone into the water. I catch him when he is slow and sleepy, I catch him from behind when he doesn’t know I’m coming.”

  Julian pointed to Devi’s three missing fingers. “Sometimes he knows you’re coming.”

  Devi gulped down his sake. “A different kind of tiger took those. I lost my fingers to frostbite when I was looking for my son. And all the toes on my left foot. That’s why I limp when I walk.”

  “You have a son?”

  “I had a s-s-son.”

  Julian waited. Devi’s face became distorted. He didn’t look up. He disappeared in the back, and when he returned, the face was smooth stone again and the voice didn’t stammer. Julian diverted the conversation to other imponderables. “How can my body, all blood and bone and muscle, travel through time?” he asked.

  “You are matter, and all matter is energy,” said Devi. “Like the soul, it was created, but it can’t be destroyed. You will take a different form.”

  “My body can’t be destroyed?” Julian became a little excited.

  Devi shook his head. “Do you bleed like the Lord, thirst like the Lord? Do you feel pain like the Lord? Watch out for falling rocks, Julian, for swords, pestilence, fire, ice, bad water, evil men. Watch out for the hangman’s square and for black rain. Don’t make people more powerful than you angry. You’ll still be matter, but you’ll be dust. Yes, your body can be hurt. Like Josephine’s. Your flesh is mortal. Be careful with it. As the breath leaves your body, so all your plans perish.”

  “I guess I’m going, right?” Julian said.

  “Everything is a question with you.”

  “Guess so. Right?”

  And Devi almost laughed.

  “Tell me something, Julian. Are you head or hands?”

  “I guess these days I’m mostly head.” Julian stared at his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I know a little about plants. My abuela, my father’s mother, insisted on sharing with me everything she’d learned from her own grandmother who grew up in Salina Cruz in Mexico.”